Overpopulation

Asimov:
 "In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation.  Human dignity cannot survive it.   Convenience and decency cannot survive it.  As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears.  It doesn't matter if someone dies.  The more people there are, the less one individual matters."

- Isaac Asimov from page 276 of Bill Moyers' book, A World of Ideas



Estimated world population figures, 10,000 BC–2000 AD.

 

Water Footprint

Water use

Water use can mean the amount of water used by a household or a country, or the amount used for a given task or for the production of a given quantity of some product or crop. The term "water footprint" is often used to refer to the amount of water used by an individual, community, business, or nation.

World water use has been growing rapidly in the last hundred years (see graph from New Scientist article). From 1900 to 2000, water use for agriculture went from about 500 to 2,500 cubic kilometers per year, while total use rose from around 600 to more than 3,000 cubic kilometres per year. Agriculture uses 70% of water resources.

In the U.S, the typical single family home uses about 69.3 gallons (262 litres) of water per day (2008 estimate). This includes (in decreasing order) toilet use, washing machine use, showers, baths, faucet use, and leaks.

Water footprint

The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Water use is measured in water volume consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per unit of time. A water footprint can be calculated for any well-defined group of consumers (e.g., an individual, family, village, city, province, state or nation) or producers (e.g., a public organization, private enterprise or economic sector). The water footprint is a geographically explicit indicator, not only showing volumes of water use and pollution, but also the locations.

The water footprint of a country is related to what its people eat. In 1993, Professor John Allan (2008 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate), strikingly demonstrated this by introducing the "virtual water" concept, which measures how water is embedded in the production and trade of food and other products. For example, it a common thought that the water involved in a cup of coffee is just the water in the cup. There is actually 140 litres of water involved. The 140 litres of water is the amount of water that was used to grow, produce, package, and ship the coffee beans. A hamburger needs an estimated 2,400 litres of water. This hidden water is technically called virtual water. Therefore, eating a lot of meat means a large water footprint. The more food comes from irrigated land, the larger is the water footprint.

Situation of EF in Australia

Our Ecological Footprint shows that 1.5 Earths would be required to meet the demands humanity makes on nature each year. Between 1970 and 2010, the population sizes of vertebrate species have dropped by half.

A measure of the impact humans have on the environment is called an ecological footprint. A country’s ecological footprint is the sum of all the cropland, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fibre and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted when it uses energy and to provide space for infrastructure.

 WWF’s found WWF’s Living Planet Report 2014 found that in 2010, the global ecological footprint was 18.1 billion global hectares (gha) or 2.6 gha per capita. Earth’s total biocapacity was 12 billion gha, or 1.7 gha per capita.

 This means that the Earth’s people needed 18 billion hectares of productive land in order to provide each and every person with the resources they required to support their lifestyle and to absorb the wastes they produced. 

 The bad news is that there were only 12 billion global hectares available.

This means that in 2010 people used about 50% more natural resources than the planet could regenerate.

 The message is clear and urgent. We need to consume less if we are to live within the regenerative capacity of the Earth.

What is Australia’s ecological footprint?
We have been exceeding the Earth’s ability to support our lifestyle. Habitats are being destroyed; our soils and waterways are being degraded. The balance must be restored.

In Australia, we’re consuming more than three times our fair share of the planet’s natural resources. If we continue these consumption patterns, we will face an ecological overshoot that will have far-reaching future consequences for people and nature.

 Australians have one of the largest environmental footprints per capita in the world, requiring 6.25 global hectares per person.

 If the rest of the world lived like we do in Australia, we’d need the regenerative capacity of 3.6 Earths to sustain our demands on nature.

 Although advances in technology have helped people to produce things more efficiently, the benefits have been over-shadowed by ever-growing levels of consumption. Technological advances have raised the planet’s total biocapacity from 9.9 to 12 billion gha between 1961 and 2010. However, during that period the human population has risen from 3.1 billion to nearly 7 billion people, reducing the available biocapacity.

 Carbon has been the dominant component of humanity’s Ecological Footprint for more than half a century. In 1961, carbon was 36 per cent of our total Footprint but by 2010 it comprised 53 per cent.

 

Visit http://www.wwf.org.au

Russia is the Most Populous Nation With Increasing Renewable Natural Resource Reserves

Media Contact:
 Ronna Kelly
 Communications Director
 Global Footprint Network
 ronna.kelly@footprintnetwork.org
 phone: +1 510 839 8879

OAKLAND, CA, USA – OCTOBER 13, 2014 – Russia ranks fourth in the world among nations with the most biocapacity and is uniquely positioned as the most populous nation with increasing biocapacity reserves, according to a report released Oct. 13 by WWF-Russia in Moscow.

The report by WWF-Russia and Global Footprint Network, titled “Ecological Footprint of the Subjects of the Russian Federation,” assessed Russia and its regions using two main criteria: biocapacity and Ecological Footprint. Biocapacity measures biologically productive land areas, including forests, pastures, cropland and fisheries. These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also absorb much of the waste we generate, including our carbon emissions.

Biocapacity then can be compared against a population’s demand on nature, measured by its Ecological Footprint.

 Only Brazil, China, and the United States have more total biocapacity than Russia. Of those, only Brazil has a larger biocapacity reserve than Russia, calculated by measuring the difference between biocapacity and Ecological Footprint. But as Brazil’s population and domestic demand has increased during the past 50 years, its per capita biocapacity reserve has declined 73 percent. If it fails to arrest this per capita decline in biocapacity reserves, Brazil could cross into deficit within the next 50 years.

In contrast, Russia’s biocapacity reserve is growing. This means that Russia’s population is less dependent on the biocapacity of other nations than most of the world’s other economies.

“Russia is in an advantageous position as one of the few nations in the world with a solid biocapacity reserve,” said Mathis Wackernagel, President of Global Footprint Network. “Even in this fortunate position, it is squarely in Russia’s self-interest to minimize the loss of its biocapacity reserve by managing its resources use wisely. If it fails to do so, Russia will be caught in the same resource crisis that many other countries face.”

Russia’s unique position means that with a sensible approach towards natural resources management, it can supply itself with stable reserves of biocapacity for decades ahead. But how long can this last?

Per-person resource use in Russia has grown since 1998 and is above the world average available biocapacity of 1.8 global hectares per person (based on 2009 data, the latest available at the time of the report). If everyone on the planet lived the lifestyle of the average Russian, humanity would need more than two Earths to sustain this demand.

Currently the most developed areas of Russia enjoy the strongest regional investment climate. But their consumption levels are high, and they have relatively fewer natural resources. The 10 regions with the strongest investment climate, including Moscow, the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, account for 47 percent of Russia’s Ecological Footprint.

These three regions also have the lowest biocapacity and the highest Ecological Footprint per capita. If everyone on Earth lived the lifestyle of an average Muscovite, we would need 3.3 planets instead of one. Only one region out of ten—Krasnoyarsk Krai—enjoys both a favorable investment climate and plentiful natural resources.

The areas where the nation’s natural resources are concentrated attract considerably lower investment. The highest per capita biocapacity is found in Chukotsky, Nenetsky, Sakha Republic (Yakutiya), Magadansky, Kamchatsky and Krasnoyarsky.

“If investors will continue to act in accordance with standard rating systems, one can expect that regions delivering natural resources will keep destroying their own natural capital without investing anything into their future,” said Evgeny Shvarts, Director of Nature Protection Policy at WWF-Russia.

According to the report, the most favorable situation is found in the regions that combine a high level of biocapacity with high human development potential—for example, Khabarovsky, Murmansky and Arkhangelsky, Krasnoyarsky, and Irkutsky.

“If Russia wants to stay among the world economic powers and strengthen the well-being of its citizens, it must take necessary steps to preserve its natural resources, both mineral and biological, as well as invest into science, education, culture and technological developments, so that it creates a knowledge economy and lowers the general load on the ecosystems,” stress the authors of the report.

What is the Ecological Footprint?

Human activities  consume resources and produce waste, and as our populations grow and global consumption increases, it is essential that we measure nature’s capacity to meet these demands. The Ecological Footprint has emerged as one of the world’s leading measures of human demand on nature. Simply put, Ecological Footprint Accounting addresses whether the planet is large enough to keep up the demands of humanity.

The Footprint represents two sides of a balance sheet. On the asset side, biocapacity represents the planet’s biologically productive land areas including our forests, pastures, cropland and fisheries. These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also absorb much of the waste we generate, especially our carbon emissions.

Biocapacity can then be compared with humanity’s demand on nature: our Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint represents the productive area required to provide the renewable resources humanity is using and to absorb its waste.  The productive area currently occupied by human infrastructure is also included in this calculation, since built-up land is not available for resource regeneration.
It now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.

We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the Earth’s resources. Overshoot is a vastly underestimated threat to human well-being and the health of the planet, and one that is not adequately addressed.

By measuring the Footprint of a population—an individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanity—we can assess our pressure on the planet, which helps us manage our ecological assets more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where humanity lives within the Earth’s bounds.

Conceived in 1990 by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia, the Ecological Footprint is now in wide use by scientists, businesses, governments, agencies, individuals, and institutions working to monitor ecological resource use and advance sustainable development.

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